


Before Time

by farrah_yondale



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Warriors
Genre: F/F, Happy, One-Shot, shortfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 14:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17530337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farrah_yondale/pseuds/farrah_yondale
Summary: You left me, Hylia, all alone in that place. To watch you forget me for eternity.





	Before Time

She remembers the sun, before she even had a name. She didn’t need one when Hylia could call to her in her mind, when Hylia’s intent pulled her close like a string tugging on her chest. She remembers that time as eternity, as a time _before_ , when Hylia took charge of their ship of white stone and endless skies. When time was irrelevant and could go in whichever direction it pleased, and not something she kept a meticulous eye on, a chore.

She watched Hylia die, and then she watched her come back in the form of an infant in human arms. She could not fathom why Hylia chose to do this. At first, she assumed it was wisdom she had no access to. It quickly grew into resentment.

Thousands of lifetimes was only a few seconds to a Goddess, and a Goddess of Time at that. Hylia ruled everything mortal and tangible, her shadow ruled that which could not be held or restrained. And she, like the matter she ruled, could not be restrained either.

Mortals would need to call her something. They needed names for things, they needed to hold things in their fragile hands and give it meaning. They had little time to learn the language Hylia and her lover spoke in silence.

Cia. It was a few syllables, the two-step of a mortal heartbeat. The sound closest to the things Hylia called her.

But it would not save her. Hylia ruled power and wisdom and courage and all things mortals could be and shouldn’t be. Cia was powerless in a mortal form. She could not control the elements around her, just as she could not control the tide of battle.

Cia cried out as the mask was ripped from her face. Zelda looked at her—her dark, teary-eyed face—though Cia would never admit that, chalk it up to exertion and not grief, she could not feel grief—and readied her sword.

“You left me…you left me…”

The words were out of her mouth before she even understood what was happening. She truly could not control anything in this mortal world.

Zelda’s stance, admittedly, had never been one of aggression but one of defense. She stood beside a Sheikah and a Zora, both of whom supported her with magic and weapons at the ready of their own. When Zelda lowered her sword—just slightly—Cia could see the stances of the warriors beside her shift.

“What do you mean, Cia?” Zelda asked. Truly the princess of wisdom. Zelda probably knew of things beyond her— _probably_ , of course, Zelda knew, as Cia hadn’t been beside her in all her lifetimes and watched her every calculated move. She knew, perhaps in the moment she knelt beside Cia, that Cia told the truth, because there were so many thing she had done that she could not remember.

“You left me, Hylia,” Cia wept and admonished her own vulnerability in that moment. “All alone in that place. To watch you forget me for eternity.”

And then when Zelda smiled, Cia thought she saw Hylia giggling at her in the Sacred Realm, above the skies in an endless sea of sunshine, and her heart was at ease. _I remember_ her face said in that same silent language.

And then her face disappeared and she was Zelda again, smiling. The young mortal with no more wisdom than any twenty-some year old. Cia thought she might be able to love this, too.

“But you’re here now, Cia,” Zelda said, smiling back at her companions. The two women beside her realized they wouldn’t need their weapons and sheathed them. “Come with us. You’ll find many of us, once immortals who’ve forsaken that life.” She laughed then, to Cia’s shock, and her peals of laughter sounded exactly like Hylia’s. She extended her hand. “That life is boring. We have more fun here.”

Cia closed her eyes and saw the skies of Hylia and her plane again. The endless sun and laughter, and she thought there might be a place for it here in this mortal realm, too.

Cia smiled and took Zelda’s hand. “All right.”


End file.
